Finding active DTS packages
DTS is dead, long live SSIS. Way back when SQL 2005 was announced then released DTS was pronounced DOA. SSIS...
2013-12-09 (first published: 2013-11-27)
3,178 reads
Kenneth Fisher
Undocumented functionality in FORMATMESSAGE
I was reading a rather interesting post on stackexchange “Why is % a forbidden char in a THROW message?” (which is...
2013-12-09
1,491 reads
Insert into a table using only default values
A while back I talked about the DEFAULT keyword and using it to tell SQL to use the default value...
2013-12-04
1,021 reads
Why do DBAs like to say “It Depends” so much?
Well the short answer is that they just don’t have enough information to give a definitive answer. You will notice...
2013-12-02
648 reads
Finding the metadata for a query
You know I occasionally find it interesting how I learn new things. I was running through a practice test for...
2013-11-25
2,301 reads
A pattern to do beginning of period calculations.
Beginning of period calculations are common things. Rolling month reports, queries to pull everything from last month etc require beginning...
2013-11-20
756 reads
Connection options in SSMS
When connecting to a SQL Server instance in SSMS there are a fair number of options. Most DBAs I know...
2013-11-18
1,553 reads
Who’s on call
Every morning we have a daily meeting and my manager asks who’s on call. And every morning some form of...
2013-11-13
593 reads
A better way to find missing indexes
I recently attended SQL Saturday #255 and specifically the performance tuning pre-con put on by Grant Fritchey. It was a...
2013-11-11
936 reads
sp_SrvPermissions & sp_DBPermissions V3.0
These are a couple of stored procedures I wrote to help me with security research. Each sp returns three data...
2013-11-11 (first published: 2013-11-04)
1,852 reads
Blogs
Resetting on the AI hype train
By Brian Kelley
There's a great article from MIT Technology Review about resetting on the hype of...
A New Word: Etherness
By Steve Jones
etherness – n. the wistful feeling of looking around a gathering of loved ones,...
Vibe Coding a Login Tracking System
By Steve Jones
A customer was asking about tracking logins and logouts in Redgate Monitor. We don’t...
Forums
The Microsoft SQL Year in Review
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Microsoft SQL Year in...
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: The || Operator
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...
Your Value from a Conference
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Your Value from a Conference
Question of the Day
UNISTR Basics
What does this code return in SQL Server 2025+? (assume the database has an appropriate collation)
SELECT UNISTR('Hello 4E16754C') AS 'A Classic';
A: 
B: 
See possible answers